THE GEEK by Eve Rings
The exhibit was closed again. Jane looked at the man, greasy Metallica T-shirt,
shitstained Wranglers, scruffy chinweasel and red-rimmed green eyes. He had finished
a joint sometime within the hour, and he slumped against the trailer, flicking his
cigarette against the door jamb. The carnival had been in town for a week.
Jane had finally gotten her nerve up to enter "The Geek Lair" and now it was
closed. "When will it be open?" she asked. "Try back
tomorrow." He replied to her breasts. She left the fairgrounds,
sidestepping crumpled snocone wrappers and discarded Mardi-Gras beads, shiny plastic
jewels in the fierce August sun.
She woke at dawn the next day, washing her face and drinking a diet
coke while deciding what to wear. She smoked. Her apartment was a mess,
plastic grocery bags filled with Harlequin romances and Twinkie and Ding-Dong boxes
littered the floor. There was vomit as well, some puddles coagulating on the floor,
flies feasting on the regurgitated offerings of potato chips and ice cream.
"God, it reeks in here." She mumbled to the mirror, carefully applying her
Apricot Ice lipstick and smacking. She took a can of Lysol and sprayed the puddles,
the flies weakly swimming in the chemicals that had destroyed their food. She
cranked the A/C and left the apartment, looking the door and checking to make sure.
It was locked.
The carnival was slow at eight a.m., workers sat at picnic tables
dipping sugar-coated churros into Styrofoam cups of bitter coffee. The game runners
tried to woo what few customers wandering the grounds with calls of "Three balls for
a dollar." and "Hey Mistah! You win for the boy! You win for your
woman!" The ring game had a few takers, parents whose children pointed at the
sick, shivering rabbits. The rabbits were young, huddled together, gray, black,
white spotted, some with their runny eyes sealed shut from pus, some asleep on over turned
water bowls and feed pellets, surrounded by chicken wire. Screams of "Mommy,
Mommy! I want a bunny!" pierced the sleepy morning. Jane walked past the
displays of dart games and coin tosses, mirrors with rock bands printed on them that were
popular three years ago glinting in the sun, dayglow green and orange stuffed monkeys
hanging from fishing line. She made her way to the trailer, the scents of the oil
frying the corn dogs and the cotton candy making her dizzy and weak. A woman sat on
a wooden stool outside the trailer, Harley Davidson tank top and cutoff shorts, her skin
wore the brand of homemade tattoos, a small green cross and the number thirteen on the
opposite. "Is it open yet?" Jane asked. The woman looked
around. "We usually like to get a few more in." Jane followed her
gaze then met her aqua-blue rimmed eyes. The woman sighed. "Okay, five
bucks." Jane fished a bill from her plastic "snakeskin" purse and
handed it to the woman who shoved it in her shorts' pocket. "Go on
in." The trailer was big, a doublewide that had been gutted, a few small
windows covered with curtains with a cherry and apple pattern on them. A platform
had been built in the center of the room and metal folding chairs surrounded it.
Jane took a seat in front. A black curtain hung from a circular shower rod hung from
the ceiling. The woman came in, drew the curtain, and left, slamming the screen door
and the tin door behind her. A man sat in one of the metal chairs on the platform
before her, wearing a pair of jeans and no shirt. He had a shaved head and
light-colored eyes, his mouth hung slack like he had been the recipient of more than one
root canal. Next to his chair sat a metal cage with a small rabbit in it and a cheap
plastic cassette deck. He leaned down and pushed the play button and Jane recognized
the music from The Omen. A voice spoke over the instrumental, community-theatre
dramatic and filtered through an audio delay. "What you see before you is a
true freak of nature. One of God's cruelest jokes. A man so insane, so evil,
that he...." "Excuse me." Jane said loudly. The man in
the chair looked at her. "Could you turn that off please? It's
distracting me." The man spoke. "It's part of the show."
"Please?" He reached down and stopped the tape. "Thank
you." She said. He stared blankly at her. "Well,"
she said. "Do your thing." He reached down and unhooked the cage,
grabbing the rabbit by the scruff of its' neck and holding it up to face her, the
audience. He spoke softly. "I am used to doing it with the
tape." "Go on," she encouraged, sliding to the edge of her
chair. "Okay." He petted the rabbit and grasped its' hind legs in
one hand and its' front paws in the other. He leaned down and clutched its' skull,
twisted its' neck and simultaenously bit down. Blood gushed from the wound and he
lapped at it like a dog, letting it spray across his cheek and face, his eyes
closed. He chewed and sucked for about a minute, and then let the carcass drop to
the floor. "Is that it?" she asked. "Yes." He
whispered. She dug in her purse, wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to
him. "Come over when you are done." She got up and left, and as he
rewound the tape he memorized her address, clutching the paper in his blood-drenched fist.
She cleaned her apartment, scrubbing her floors, taking out the
garbage, making her bed. She showered and dressed. At seven o'clock she
answered her door to find him, blue jeans and faded work shirt, holding a pastel pink
stuffed cat, plastic blue eyes and white paws. "This is for you." He
said. She motioned with her head. "Come in." He sat on her
couch and she sat beside him. "Can I get you a drink?" she offered.
"No thanks, I'm okay," he replied. "Why do you do it?"
"The carnival?" he asked. "Yes." "I needed a
job." "Do you like it?" she asked. "It's okay," he
said, taking the stuffed cat from her and looking at it. He turned and faced her,
petting the cat. "Are you a vampire?" She asked.
"Vampire? Why would you think I'm a vampire?" he laughed. "The
rabbit...." she stammered. "And I saw the movie with Tom Cruise....I like
vampires...." He stroked the cat against her face. "Sorry," he
said. "I am not a vampire." He ran the cat's body down her neck and
against her breasts. She felt its' hard, foam-filled body against her
nipples. "Do you like this?" he whispered. She nodded
"yes" and he put the cat between her legs, butting its' hard plastic head
against her crotch. Then he leaned over and kissed her, his wet mouth covering
hers. She explored his mouth with her tongue, digging bits of fur and meat from
between his teeth. She drew back with an "ouch" and put her finger in her
mouth, then taking it out and noticing blood on it. His teeth had cut her
tongue. "Your teeth are sharp." She said. "I file them
because it makes it easier to bite the animals." he explained. "Are you
going to bite me?" She asked, reaching down and feeling the cat's head already wet
from her. "I told you......." he said, standing up and taking her hand,
"I am not a vampire." She followed him down the hall ot her bedroom.
"What are you then?" He shoved her to the bed and started unzipping his
jeans. "I'm an American."
She awoke the next morning and rolled over to find he had left.
He had left no note and she hugged her pillow tightly, her thighs bruised and
throbbing. He had bitten her, across her shoulders and breasts, hard enough to break
the skin but not fierce enough to remove flesh. She gingerly touched the marks,
wincing at the rawness. "This wasn't at all like the movies or books."
she thought. "But then again, he did say he wasn't a vampire." She
carefully stood up and put on her robe. The pink cat lay discarded in the corner,
blood caked on its' nylon fur. She considered going to the carnival to see him but
she didn't want to seem desperate. She made tea and curled up on the sofa and
finished reading "Unbridled Passion." Then she watched her stories but she
was too sore to masturbate over Dr. Jones, who was her favourite. She fell asleep on
the couch and when she awoke it was dark outside, the digital clock on the end table
flashing 8:13. She was hungry, so she went to the kitchen and started collecting
food from the cupboards and refrigerator. She stood on the linoleum, shoving
fistfuls of melted ice cream in her mouth, tunafish, cookies, hot dog buns. She
drank from a gallon of milk, letting it spill down the front of her robe, wiping her
greasy hands on the polyester fabric. She ate and ate. Half a cheesecake, some
raw cookie dough in a tube, American cheese slices, a frozen pizza that had thawed in the
refrigerator. Wrappers littered the counter and floor, and her hands were raw from
scraping against her teeth. She heard a knock at the door and froze. She wiped
her mouth on the back of her hand, yelling, "Who is it?" "It's
me," he answered. "From the carny." She unlocked the door and
unhooked the chain. He held a bright purple octopus with fat red lips in his hands.
She watched him walk into the kitchen, containers crunching under his dirty boots.
"I'm going to be sick," she muttered, clamping her hand over her mouth
and quickly walking down the hall to her bathroom. He started after her.
"No, wait!" She moaned loudly, "I can't." He grabbed her
arm and she struggled against him. He tackled her to the floor and held her above
him. "Feed me. Feed me Momma bird." She shook her head
"No" and he shoved his fingers in her mouth, reaching the back of her throat
before her teeth clamped down hard. She released and gagged and he shoved his mouth
over hers, drinking in the warm bile-tinged sweetness of her stomach. He coughed and
swallowed, and she continued vomiting on the floor next to his head. He patted her
back, murmuring, "There, there.... You're okay." while she heaved ragged, wet
sobs. "Go on, wash your face." He said, pushing her off him and
walking to the living room, his boots making a wet thwack in the puddle of vomit.
He sat on the couch with the stuffed octopus next to him. She came into the room,
her face tight from soap. "Come here." he said, patting the space
next to him. She sat down, picking up the octopus and holding it, resting her head
on his shoulder. He sighed heavily. "Now, the reason I came over is
because we're heading out. I gotta say good-bye to you." "But, but
why?" she asked, sitting up and facing him. "Because we got other towns to
get to." She looked at him pleadingly. "But I could come with!
I could work! I could help with the rabbits!" "Now, we got
someone who does that, you best just stay here." He said, patting her hand.
"Okay," she sighed, walking him to the door. "Will I ever see
you again?" "You might," he said, kissing her good-bye. She
locked the door behind him and checked it five times. She never did see him again
and she stopped thinking about vampires, but ever summer she would find the severed heads
of animals on her doorstep. She once had a cat who did the same thing. She
would pick up the heads, always rabbits, sometimes rats and sparrows. She would her
their tiny skulls in their hand and think of him before throwing them in the trash.
Valentines from the geek.
Raymond by Matt Samet
That voice of ignorance will follow me to my
grave. It drives up my heart rate, makes me breathe nails and swoon like a prom night
virgin who finds out her date isn't the captain of the football team but the football team
itself.
"I want you in the bathroom. I want you to get back in the back," the voice yells. It's dark, male, eternal and the girl, as usual, is crying and saying "Don't you ever do that again don't you ever do that again Raymond," and she sounds scared and stupid just like him but there's something sexy about her fear and namelessness and helplessness. Even now, standing by the window, sweating and shaking, I feel a nervous hard-on growing, unwanted.
The name Raymond seems somehow perfect, so male and flat and macho and intractable that of course only a Raymond or a Ray would be beating that girl in that motel room by that highway on this night. Beating her like she fucking deserves it.
And it's not the kind of Raymond you want to help or talk to or even try to calm down. This Raymond is bad, a big evil voice rotten with history and command and violence and stupidity. Some glass breaks and the girl starts crying even harder.
She runs out of the room--I can hear her heels clacking on the cement walkway next to the parking lot. That's good. At least he's letting her out of the room or he's too slowdrunk to stop her. God help her if he gets her in the bathroom where he wants her. I'm sure he's already slapped her, that slab of meat thrown down on a counter permutation rippling through the panelling above my bed and waking me up in the coldest hungriest sweat a White boy can ever know.
The rain has stopped a few hours ago but I can still hear her splashing around out there by the truck (I already peeked out the blinds a few minutes ago when I heard them pull in and start whooping and yelling). Raymond comes out and gets her, but all I can see is a moustache and some black eyes. I saw this guy before in the lobby, looking all nervous with those black and white security cameras pointed at him while he got the room for the two of them. He was all hopped up with a back full of mean little muscles and those fucking military issue glasses and the kind of beer gut that you only get from drinking out of pure spite. He's the kind of guy that I've been trying to avoid all my life, as if I have this chemical fucking biological aversion to him and all his macho little cousins like they killed me in a past life by holding my head under the grey water of a South Valley arroyo in the heart of a cruel dusty Albuquerque summer solely because they could. A quick death, unexpected and pointless.
I don't like him or his type, he hated me of course on sight, and he made me nervous for no real reason. So I just looked at his face in the images from the security cameras flashing up on the screen above our heads until the monstrous, acne-ridden girlsloth behind the counter gave him his keys and he swaggered back out to his phat ride.
When we checked into our room Chiara started getting nervous right away, saying she didn't like the stains on the carpet and the big empty kitchenette, walk-in closet, cubicle bathroom all compartmentalized off behind cheap oak doors lined up like tombstones above our bed. And she didn't like the fact that our room was way in the back of this u-shaped parking lot just off the highway and the security cameras when we checked in and the way the room smelled and I just thought she was bitching about nothing, the walls had this fake wood panelling just like I had in my room when I was a kid so I felt safe, sort of at home, even though her misgivings were making me fucking nervous, myself.
I checked out the stains; they weren't blood, more like cheap sloe or strawberry wine or something. I went into the bathroom to take a leak while Chiara lay on the bed and watched some HBO documentary about murders caught on videocamera, this horrible manbeast slogging out of the bathroom with a knife and blood all over his fat sallow stomach acting sort of happy and retarded and all these cops standing around pointing cameras and guns at shit and a dead fat body in the bathtub. No wonder Chiara was scared. Too much television. Too much America.
Out of force of habit I looked under the sink. I always check there, in every bathroom, a medicine head on the prowl. Of course there wouldn't be any pharms in some cheap sleazy motel in central Arizona, but there was a King Cobra Forty and some sort of flavored gin empty rattling around behind the water pipes. I thought of telling Chiara about this, but she was already keyed up enough. We went to dinner instead.
And now there's this fucking Raymond thing hitting his woman and I'm crouched down by the bed stuffing all our things back into the duffel bags and being so careful not to make a noise unless the girl hears us and comes running over for help because I'm too scared for my own ass to really know what I can or want to do for her. Do I want to die because I'm interfering with Raymond's bitch? Do I want to make this Raymond have to kill me? No. And Chiara shouldn't die for it either. She's just a visitor in this country, which she claims is too violent anyway.
I shake her by the neck, getting her out of sleep. So far she's missed the theatrics; she could sleep through anything.
Her eyes get wide the minute she's two or three seconds back into reality and hearing all this running around and screaming and fucking Raymond with all his anger and ignorance and me all white with fear and breathing too fast and shoving her duffel bag in her hand and saying let's go let's go be quiet I don't want to get us killed let's fucking go get in the fucking car and drive and it still takes her like a minute to get her things together--her shoes and toothbrush and I'm pulling her toward the door the whole time more like crawling so they won't see us through the window and by this time we're infecting each other with fear and slinking out the door. I leave it open because it doesn't matter anymore and we walk fast for the car and jump in and there's Raymond and the girl sitting out in his truck, talking it over now, so fucking calm while I'm dying of fight or flight, Arizona Skyways.
They're looking at us really strange, like we're the scary ones getting in our car at two a.m. and driving off for no reason and they stop arguing for a second and watch us pull away with these puzzled looks on their faces (I can almost see Raymond's round little eyes clouding up behind those glasses) and already I'm starting to wonder if I haven't over-reacted but Chiara says to just keep going even though she's dropping back into sleep so I cruise around for a few minutes until I see a Wal-Mart and I pull in and we watch Indians coming out of the store, their faces clean from washing up in the bathrooms that the store leaves open at night for the travellers who bivuoac in the parking lot. An Indian woman in slacks and a Grand Canyon sweatshirt comes out of the store and gives me a weird look as I pull to a slow stop in front of the little Merry-Go-Round beside the phone booths. We're sitting prettier now, pure orange halogen bathing the car, beading up harvest suns in the sweat on the backs of my hands.
I'm starting to breathe slower and my hands are loosening up on the steering wheel. The streetlights are losing their snowflake haloes and I'm only checking the rear view mirror every five seconds instead of one. I'm calming down.
"Should we go back," I ask her, my voice still shaky.
"No. Call the cops. You don't know what that guy is doing to that poor girl right now," she says.
Is Chiara implying that I'm a coward? Christ who cares she's still alive and so am I and all the fear in the world is never going to do anything about the sickos, fuck-ups, skaghead, prettyboys, methwhores and knife-waving blanket asses that wander around on highways and and slink in and out of cheap motels on cloudy nights in the desert and poke each other with penises and needles and fists and glass and bullets on their slow evil way out to California. Not one thing.
"Yaa. I suppose you're right." I get out of the car and wobble over to the pay phones and call 911.
"What's your emergency?" It's a woman, not a man or a Raymond or a fucking hotel clerk. I'm starting to get it back together.
"We were at the Arizona Inn and the people in the room next to us, it was twelve I think, were fighting. I'm scared that they might hurt each other. I'm calling you guys."
"Were they a couple?"
"Yaa, and it sounded like he hit her and the girl was crying..."
"Did they sound drunk?"
"Yes."
"Were they Native American or could you tell?"
I had forgotten we were in the middle of a reservation. I tell the lady I that I don't really know, that I just got out of there to protect me and my girlfriend, that the guy was this drunk raging Raymond and that they should check it out. She takes my name and I hang up.
We leave town on 89, cruising right past the hotel. The cops are just pulling out of the parking lot. Nothing much seems to be happening. On the highway outside of town we keep seeing crosses everywhere, an impossible number, like hundreds and thousands in clumps of ten and twenty just off the embankment on all these hairpin turns creeping up to the distant rim of the Grand Canyon.
All these fucking shiny silver little crosses without names on them. And Raymond.
I don't see the sun again until it slants across my face outside of Monument Valley.
and by then it's too late to turn back.
previously appeared in lfino.